Robin Ventura made the educated guesses concerning the start of John Danks' 2013 season all but official following Wednesday's 4-2 White Sox loss to the D-backs at Camelback Ranch.

The White Sox Opening Day starter from 2012 will almost certainly begin the current campaign on the disabled list, with Dylan Axelrod likely moving into the rotation. Danks, who had Aug. 6 arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder, has been healthy throughout Spring Training, but the White Sox have not seen enough from him in terms of velocity and command.

"Until he gets everything back and can throw everything as hard as he wants and has that velocity, you're just seeing him out there without a lot of his pitches," said Ventura, who added that Danks would work in Minor League games to try to build up that velocity. "He doesn't have the difference in his fastball and changeup to get that. I don't see him, at this point, making the Opening Day roster. So we're making adjustments for that. Again, it doesn't feel right when he's out there."

"His arm is just not bouncing back like he would hope, but he's going to be just fine," said White Sox starter Jake Peavy of Danks. "We feel like we got enough guys here to bridge the gap until we get him back. When we get him back, we want him to be close to the John Danks we all know."

In looking at Danks' current Spring Training struggles, Peavy immediately is reminded of another pitcher who dealt with the same post-surgical Arizona issues.

It was Peavy, of course, in Spring Training '11, coming off 2010 season-ending surgery in July to reattach his lat muscle.

"I got healthy and worked all through the winter and you come to spring and you throw it into the gear we are all in ," Peavy said. "Your body just went through a major change. It takes a while for the strength to be there and for the muscles to be able to recover like they do when they are 100 percent healthy. The biggest thing I think for John is he's not feeling any pain. That's a good sign for us."